Playing video games makes children more intelligent.

Playing video games makes children more intelligent

Playing video games makes children more intelligent

A new study has revealed that spending lots of time on a console can increase the IQ of a child.

Researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden carried out tests on over 5,000 children in the US aged between 10 and 12 to examine their cognitive abilities.

The children and their parents were asked how much time the youngsters spent playing video games before the study was followed up two years later.

The results showed that kids who played more games than average increased their intelligence by around 2.5 IQ points more than average.

Torkel Klingberg, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Karolinska Institutet, said: 'While children who played more video games at ten years were on average no more intelligent than children who didn't game, they showed the most gains in intelligence after two years.

"This is evidence of a beneficial, causal effect of video games on intelligence."